This is a very brief demonstration motivated by some principled arguments I've been making over the last week or so regarding Web Architecture dictates which are ill-concieved and may do more damage to the Semantic Web than good. A more fully articulated argument is sketched out in "HTTP URIs are not Without Expense" and "Semiotics of RDF Signs". In particular, the argument about why most of the httpRange-14 dialog is confusing dereference with denotation. I've touched on some of this before.
Anywho, the URI I've minted for myself is
When you 'dereference' it, the server responds with:
chimezie@otherland:~/workspace/Ontologies$ curl -I http://metacognition.info/profile/webwho.xrdf#chime HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 06:29:12 GMT Server: Apache/2.2.3 (Debian) DAV/2 SVN/1.4.2 mod_python/3.2.10 Python/2.4.4 PHP/4.4.4-8+etch1 proxy_html/2.5 mod_ssl/2.2.3 OpenSSL/0.9.8c mod_perl/2.0.2 Perl/v5.8.8 Last-Modified: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 03:09:22 GMT Content-Length: 6342 Via: 1.1 www.metacognition.info Expires: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:28:26 GMT Age: 47 Content-Type: application/rdf+xml
According to TAG dictate, a 'web' agent can assume it refers to a document (yes, apparently an RDF document composed this blog you are reading).
Update: Bijan points out that my example is mistaken. The TAG dictate only allows the assumption to be made of the URI which goes across the wire (the URI with the fragment stripped off). The RDF (FOAF) doesn't make any assertions about this (stripped) URI being a foaf:Person. This is technically correct, however, the concern I was highlighting still holds (albeit it is more likely to confuse folks who are already confused about dereference and denotation). The assumption still gets in the way of 'proper' interpretation. Consider if I had used the FOAF graph URL as the URL for me. Under which mantra would this be taboo? Furthermore, if I wanted to avoid confusing unintelligent agents such as this one above, which URI scheme would I be likely to use? Hmmm...
Okay, a more sophisticated semantic web agent parses the RDF and understands (via the referential mechanics of model theory) that the URI denotes a foaf:Person (much more reasonable). This agent is also much better equipped to glean 'meaning' from the model-theoretic statements made about me instead of jumping to binary conclusions.
So I ask you, which agent is hampered by a dictate that has all to do with misplaced pragmatics and nothing to do with semantics? Until we understand that the 'Semantic Web' is not 'Web-based Semantics', Jim Hendler's question about where all the agents are (Where are all the agents?) will continue to go unanswered and Tim Bray's challenge will never be fulfilled.
A little tongue-in-cheek, but I hope you get the point